I really liked this episode, but, at the same time, I thought that it added a bunch of confusing elements.

Henry, always being so dramatic.

Hey, Henry isn’t dead (Boo.), but he will be soon, if they don’t retrieve his heart from Pan.

And the lesson here is never to give your heart to anyone, especially if it’s literally.

There’s no toilet in there…

Back in the past Enchanted Forest, after Regina had cast the Dark Curse, she goes to Rumpelstiltskin to gloat. I’m not sure how this scene actually had time to happen, because, if I recall correctly, the curse cloud spread very quickly throughout the land and this scene is a couple of minutes long. Whatever. Regina and Rumpelstiltskin are always fun together, so let’s roll with it.

Rumpelstiltskin tells Regina that she shouldn’t be gloating, because, since she killed her own father, there is now a hole in her heart, and, one day, she’ll need to seek out his help to fill it. Regina is all like, “Nuh-uh! My revenge is absolute! I’ve got everything I could ever want!”

He was cute, before he could talk.

Well, lo and behold, it turns out that being the mayor of a cruddy podunk town isn’t enough to make Regina happy. In fact, the last time she could remember being really happy, was when she was hanging out with the young Owen Flynn (too bad he grew up to be such a butt). Regina decides she wants to adopt a baby. Personally, I think that she should have just made a baby with sexy, sexy Sheriff Graham, but I guess a literally heartless man might not make a good father.

But it will take a minimum of two years to adopt a baby and Regina wants one NOW. Indeed, she does end up seeking out Rumpelstiltskin’s help, only he’s just Mr. Gold here, because the curse altered his memory. Regina plays right into his hands.

Mr. Gold finds Regina a baby, which she names “Henry” after her father. Baby Henry is defective, though. He won’t stop crying. Regina gets paranoid about the actual origin’s of the baby, so she calls up Sidney Glass (I think Giancarlo Esposito actually phoned-in his performance of being on a phone hehe) and asks him to look up Henry’s birth parents and just when Regina finally gets Henry to stop crying, Sidney sends her information that points to the Saviour being Henry’s birth mother. Regina must return Henry to the adoption agency, or risk the Saviour coming to Storybrooke to retrieve the child.

And I’ve gotten confused about the rules of Storybrooke again. No one can enter or leave, but they can telephone people outside of the town and use the internet, apparently. There’s also the whole bit about time being stopped, although the residents of Storybrooke don’t notice because their memories are all wonky, wouldn’t the people they know in the outside world get confused because of it?

Hipsters can’t adopt.

Regina is unable to give up Henry. She loves him too much. This is bad news for the other family that the agency had lined-up, who just so happen to be John and Michael Darling, which doesn’t make any sort of sense. Apart from them probably not being adequate adoption candidates, the picture that Peter Pan had of Henry is him as an 11-year-old, not a baby. But, really, why didn’t they try to steal the baby from Regina? They would just open a portal to Neverland right after. It’s not like they’d get caught.

Come to Boston, where they’ll give a baby to anyone, even two brothers in their twenties.

Unable to cope with her fear of the Saviour coming and being a mother at the same time, Regina drinks a potion to wipe her memories.

So, bother Regina and Rumpelstiltskin had no memories of their past lives? Doesn’t that contradict a lot of the events of season 1? I had this theory back then that neither Regina or Rumpelstiltskin actually had their old memories, but they had read Henry’s book and guessed who they were in their past lives. It couldn’t have been that, could it?

…UGH

In the present, Regina and Emma interrogate the Lost Boys about Pan’s location and Felix is being a butt, as usual. Emma decides to offer to be a mother to all 40 of the Lost Boy, you know, because she’s uber good at being a mother and stuff, but, hey, the Lost Boys take the bait and tell her that Peter Pan is hanging out at his Thinking Tree.

REGINA REGRETS NOTHING! All of her horrible actions just led her to her greatest happiness: her son. She’s a better mother than both those whiners. WHAM! She rips her son’s her out of Pan’s chest.

Everyone returns to the ship, Regina returns Henry’s heart to his chest and casts a spell on him to prevent his heart from being taken ever again, which, really, she should have done years ago, what with heart removal being everyone’s favourite pastime in this universe.

And then something happens that made no sense to me. Peter Pan switches his Shadow with Henry’s right he gets sucked into Pandora’s box. Apparently, this was like switching souls, because Pan is in control of Henry’s body now, but, up until this point, we’ve seen Shadows act like autonomous entities and we’ve seen people talk to them like they were actual people themselves. We still don’t even know where Rumpelstiltskin’s Shadow went and he doesn’t seem like an empty shell without it.

I hope this doesn’t mean that Pan, as Henry, is going to convince them to turn around and go back to Neverland. We really need to get out of there.

SPOILER ALERT! THIS POST IS ABOUT THE FOURTH EPISODE OF THE THIRD SEASON OF ONCE UPON A TIME, “NASTY HABITS”.

IN THIS EPISODE: IT’S A DADDY ISSUES FIRE SALE! ALL DADDY ISSUES MUST GO! FREE ANGST WITH EVERY PURCHASE!

Felix is the worst!

In the beginning of the episode, Felix is leading Neal through the woods, while being a smarmy weirdo and I was all like, “Crud, this is going to be a Felix-heavy episode, isn’t it?”

Incidentally, that wooden club that Felix carries looks to be an Irish weapon called a “shillelagh”. I’m now going to assume that Felix is the world’s tallest leprechaun, because EVERYBODY ON THIS SHOW MUST BE AT LEAST TWO THINGS.

YAY!

Anyway, then Neal punched Felix in his stupid face and all was well.

The hunt is on.

Meanwhile, Rumpelstiltskin was tripping balls in the woods and painting his face like he was a war veteran, with post-traumatic stress disorder, having flashbacks.

He’s still having hallucinations of Belle, which is weird. Is there an external cause for his visions, or is he just nuts?

HalluciBelle is the most emotionally-needy, annoying hallucination ever. I hope we get back to Storybrooke soon to hang out with the real Belle and she does something other than talk about Rumpelstiltskin all the time. Belle isn’t a real character anymore. She’s just a prop in Rumpelstiltskin’s story, but, then again, isn’t that everyone on this show now?

As it turns out, even Peter Pan is connected to Rumpelstiltskin’s story. Peter Pan and Rumpelstiltskin were friends as children, but they had a falling-out. Peter betrayed Rumpelstiltskin. Years later, Peter Pan, as the Pied Piper of Hamlin (EVERYBODY ON THIS SHOW MUST BE AT LEAST TWO THINGS!), used a magically flute that can only be heard boys with daddy issues, to draw away Baelfire away from Rumpelstiltskin in an attempt to kidnap him. Baelfire’s daddy issues, of course, centre around the fact that his dad is an evil, murderous and cowardly control freak.

So, Peter Pan is also the Pied Piper of Hamlin? That means that his pan flute also summons rats, right? Is Neverland full of rats, then? Can Peter Pan make the rats do his bidding? Is Peter Pan the cause of the Black Death?

What is the reason that Peter Pan only wants boys, anyway? Is his one weakness cooties?

Anyone want to bet that Peter Pan used to have the Heart of the Truest Believer, but his evil deeds blackened his heart? Pan says that he built Neverland out of his dreams, but he doesn’t seem to have that power anymore and he says that Henry does. Can you use magic to switch hearts between two people?

Ursula?

Neal and Rumpelstiltskin are reunited once again. Neal blows into the wrong end of a conch shell to summon a giant squid. Squid ink can be used to paralyze magic-users. The use it to freeze Pan and steal back Henry, who thankfully spent most of this episode asleep and not talking.

Neal learns of the prophecy that the a boy will be the undoing of the Dark One. Both Neal and Rumpelstiltskin believe that this “boy” is Henry, so Neal uses the squid ink on Rumpelstiltskin, because he trust him not to hurt Henry, what with Rumpelstiltskin’s evil past an all.

Why is everyone assuming that the “boy” is Henry and that “undoing” means death? There’s a whole island of Lost Boys and any one of them could be the “boy”. And “undoing” could mean anything really. Maybe it just means that the Dark One will be turned back into a regular man.

The Last Alliance of Heroes and Villains did some stuff too. Prince Charming is still very slowly dying of dreamshade poison and they found a star chart that leads back to Earth that Neal built out of a coconut shell, which, unfortunately, is in a code that only Neal can read.

How did Neal make that star chart, anyway? Was he some sort of geometry-wizard-astrophysicist-wunderkind as a child? Wouldn’t the stars on Neverland be completely different from the ones on Earth? Is Neverland in the same galaxy as Earth? Is Neverland on Earth? Did Neal use a spaceship to escape Neverland? Did Neal use to own the Millennium Falcon and then he sold it to Lando Calrissian to buy an apartment in New York?

In the enchanted forest, Neal meets Robin Hood’s little son, Roland and hatches a plan to get to Neverland. It turns out that all you have to do is have a child say, “I believe” by a window and Peter Pan’s Shadow will come to take them away. Neal grabs the Shadow’s foot and away he goes to Neverland.

Incidentally, when discussing options to open portals to Neverland, Neal mentions ruby slippers, like the kind Dorothy had in MGM‘s version of The Wizard of Oz. It’s important to not tha tin the original L. Frank Baum story, that the shoes were actually silver, and that’s what they’d probably have to go with is they told any of The Wizard of Oz story because of rights issues.

Miss the apple on purpose! SHOOT HIM IN THE FACE!

In the camp of the Lost Boys, Peter Pan crows like a rooster to wake Henry up. Well, he tried to crow like a rooster. I don’t think that it sounded anything like a rooster. It was more like some sort of weird cough.

Anyway, Peter Pan wants to turn our little Henry into a little bastard, so he orders Henry to try and shoot an apple off of Felix’s head with a poison arrow. You know, because just accidentally shooting Felix in the face wouldn’t enough. He’d have to accidentally poison Felix in the face as well. Well, Henry just turned right around and shot the arrow at Peter Pan, who used his mad ninja skills to catch it in midair.

Henry, a young child, tried to murder another child in cold blood. Looks like Henry is taking after Regina.

I don’t believe in fairies!

Meanwhile, the bickering alliance of Heroes and Villains is having trouble finding Peter Pan’s camp, so they decide try and find Tinker Bell, because she might have magic pixie dust, which is, like, way better than fairy dust.

Yes, in this universe, pixie dust and fairy dust are two different things, but they’re both made by the fairies. That’s not confusing at all.

Regina doesn’t like the idea of finding Tinker Bell, though. She and Tinker Bell have a past.

WHO COULD THIS BE!?

It turns out that in the past, Tinker Bell put her ass on the line to steal some pixie dust from the Blue Fairy that could be used to find Regina a new soul mate. Unfortunately, after the pixie dust was used, Regina was too afraid to go after her new true love, a man with a lion tattoo, and the Blue Fairy stripped Tinker Bell of her wings for stealing the dust. Tinker Bell is quite rightly miffed that her sacrifice was for nothing.

I really don’t like the way that the Blue Fairy behaves in this episode. These events take place before Regina becomes the Evil Queen and yet the Blue Fairy refuses to give the pixie dust to her because her mother, Cora, was evil. How good is a fairy, if her heart is full of prejudice?

I hope there’s an upcoming episode where everyone claps and Tinker Bell regains her wings. Also, since Tinker Bell doesn’t have magic anymore, it couldn’t have been her that was messing with Rumpelstiltskin with his old doll, so who was it? Curious.

I assure you, this is Robin Hood’s arm.

In this episode, we almost find out f it’s Aurora or Philip that Mulan is in love with. Presumably, it’s Aurora, because that was who she was about to confess too, but, unfortunately, before Mulan can say anything, Aurora tells her that she’s pregnant with Philip’s baby. Mulan decides to do the honourable thing and keep her mouth shut and also run away with Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men, as one does when their heart is broken.

Anyway, big surprise! It’s Robin Hood that has the lion tattoo and is, therefore, Regina’s soulmate. I find it interesting that it’s a lion. Does this mean that Robin Hood is secretly King Richard the Lionheart?

All that Regina knows about her soulmate is that he has a lion tattoo. Want to bet that some evildoer gets a lion tattoo to trick her?

I see London! I see France!

Well, that’s all for this week. Here, have a picture of Tinker Bell’s underpants.

I’d say this episode was mostly exposition, if the word “exposition” meant explaining things in the vaguest way possible, presumably, so that they can stretch out the revelation of important plot points over as many episodes as possible. The ole soap opera style long con, is what we’ve got on our hands here.

Now, be a good Spartan and leave him to die of exposure in the wilderness.

A the beginning of the show, we get a flashback to Emma giving birth to Henry and then giving him up. During the birth, her magic cause an electrical disturbance and makes the lights flash, and nobody notices or cares. Don’t ever send me to that hospital. They don’t care if a power surge knock the life-sustaining equipment out.

Emma finally calls attention to the fact that her mother, Mary Margaret, is the same age as her and doesn’t really have that much wisdom to impart. Also, that her whole “Happily Ever After” shtick is useless and annoying.

The clothes make the man.

Rumpelstiltskin changes into his old Enchanted Forest clothes. Where did Rumpelstiltskin get his old clothes from? Were they on the boat? Why did Captain Hook have Rumpelstiltskin’s clothing on his boat? I bet Captain Hook kept the Rumpelstiltskin’s clothes in his bunk and sniffed them during his alone time. Or… Rumpelstiltskin just magiced the clothing to the boat… Whatever.

Anyway, everybody on the boat is bickering and not working well together already and it’s a bit annoying how quickly the alliance of good and evil has started breaking down.

Soooo… Captain Hook was Baelfire surrogate father for awhile and now he’s crushing on Emma, Baelfire’s girlfriend. This is going to get awkward fast.

Marshmallows anyone?

Greg and Tamara take Henry on a sweet camping trip, the kind his mom and dad never had the time for.

It turns out that Greg and Tamara don’t know who they’re working for and they don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing what they’re doing. They just know that they needed to kidnap Henry and bring him to Neverland and then, like, magic, which they HATE, will… er… stop or something. They know this because of FAITH. WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY ELSE HAVE FAITH LIKE THEY DO?

Greg and Tamara are big fat dummies.

This is Felix. I hate Felix.

Hey, it’s Felix and the Lost Boys, here to ruin everybody’s good time. They want Henry.

YOUR SOUL IS MINE!

Felix calls the scary Neverland shadow creature to pull Greg’s soul out of his body. Greg looks like he’s dead. I hope he is. He was annoying.

I’m not sure anymore whether or not the scary flying shadow is Peter Pan. It may be a completely separate character. Remember, in the original Peter Pan, Peter’s shadow kept running off, until Wendy sewed the shadow to Peter Pan. I think something like that may be happening here. Peter not being in control of his malevolent, soul-stealing shadow is a little scary.

YAY!

And, Tamara get’s shot in the back with and arrow and there is much rejoicing. She doesn’t die though. Rumpelstiltskin comes by later and crushes her heart into dust, so that was good.

Free of Greg and Tamara, Henry runs into the woods to escape The Lost Boys.

Just what we needed, another KID!

So, Jojen Reed finally meets Bran Stark in the forest and explains how their fathers were great allies during Robert’s Rebellion. Er… I mean… Some blond kid saves Henry from the mean upperclassmen that were chasing him.

Remember these guys?

Mulan, Aura and Prince Philip treat Neal’s wounds and, for some strange reason, put him on Aurora’s sleeping curse bed. Why would they do that? It’s just weird. Put the poor guy on a proper bed, jeez.

Hey, Prince Philip’s soul is back in his body! They never showed us how Prince Philip’s soul was returned to his body. I SMELL A FLASHBACK EPISODE COMING UP!

They keep asking Neal about Earth and technology and stuff, and being all like “Your world frightens and confuses me”. Weird that they didn’t really do that when they were hanging out with Emma.

Anyhoo, I predict many, many episodes of wandering around the forest and not really doing much for these brave adventurers.

SPARKLY!

So, back to the boat, which is taking forever to reach the shores of Neverland, and evil mermaids start hitting the boat with their tails. Apparently, they’re really strong, because they actually start causing damage.

David straight-up starts firing a canon at the mermaids and it is ridiculous. He’s trying to murder sentient creatures without talking to them first. Maybe attacking the boat was all a big misunderstanding! We’ll never know, because attempting to explode them was his first choice of action.

Grrrrrrrr…

They capture one of the mermaids for some reason and she is pissed. She uses a magic conch shell to conjure a typhoon. I think Link from The Legend of Zelda had one of those.

Regina tells David to “Flay the bitch!”

FLAY THE BITCH? Holy Hell! I thought this was a family program!

Anyway, it turns out that the typhoon is fuelled by interpersonal discord and it just gets worse and worse as the people on the boat keep bickering and punching eachother in the face. Emma figures out that they need to start working together to stop the typhoon. She trows herself of the boat, so that they have to work together to save her. Emma is an idiot.

I think that the mermaid was really a magical angel, sent to our heroes to teach them the value of friendship and teamwork.

*SPOILERS* I already know from previews that Ariel is going to show up this season and this isn’t here. I wonder if this is actually Ursula? She can use a bit of magic like Ursula at least.

THIS ROBIN HOOD IS AN IMPOSTER

Back to the Enchanted Forest. Remember all the junk last season about nothing being left of the Enchanted Forest after the curse but a void? Complete bunk! Even Rumpelstiltskin’s castle is still there! So, Neal goes to his father’s castle to try and find a magic trinket or dealy that would open up a portal to return to Emma.

Robin Hood, played by a new actor, is there, because he likes touching other people’s stuff. Maid Marion is nowhere to be found.

I hope we have a situation where it’s The Merry Men VS The Lost Boys. I hope there isn’t anything, like, through weird time travel shenanigans, that The Lost Boys become The Merry Men. That would be silly.

THUNDERPANTS!

So, blondy has some magic fairy dust, but it only works if you truly believe it will work. Henry will believe anything that you tell hi, so of course Henry can use the dust to fly.

It turns out that the blond kid is Peter Pan and he was being all tricksy and stuff with Henry to test his belief. It turn out that Henry has “The Heart of the Truest Believer”. What does The Heart of the Truest Believer do? I bet that we’ll have to wait many, many episodes to find out. Also, how did Peter Pan find out about Henry and the he may have The Heart of the Truest Believer? There better not be a prophecy involved here. (There probably is.)

Also, it turns out that Peter Pan was the one giving Greg and Tamara their orders this whole time, in order to trick them into bringing Henry to him. But how? Neither he or his lost boys could contact them directly because they hate magic. Also, Peter Pan would have had to have a way to contact people on other worlds. If he could do that, why didn’t he just contact Henry directly, trick him into coming to Neverland and cut out the middleman? Greg and Tamara are so fanatical about their hate for magic, what if they just decided to deviate from Pan’s plan and kill all the magical creatures, Henry included? How did Peter Pan know that the citizen of Storybrooke were growing magic beans and that Greg and Tamara would be able to obtain one of the beans to get to Neverland? We see that he can send his shadow to Earth to steal child. Why didn’t he just have the shadow steal Henry? None of it makes any sense.